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'Rolfe Johnson is in superb voice … this disc is an outstanding example of his artistry' (Gramophone)'A superlative Hyperion disc … most notable is the Hyperion team presided over by Anthony Rolfe Johnson, whose 1991 recording has become one of t ...» More

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Let the dreadful engines of eternal will,
The thunder roar and crooked lightning kill,
My rage is hot as theirs, as fatal too,
And dares as horrid execution do.
Or let the frozen North its rancour show,
Within my breast far greater tempests grow;
Despair’s more cold than all the winds can blow.

Ye powers, I did but use her name,
And see how all the meteors flame;
Blue lightning flashes round the court of Sol,
And now the globe more fiercely burns
Than once at Phaeton’s fall.

Ah, where are now those flow’ry groves
Where Zephyr’s fragrant winds did play?
Where guarded by a troop of Loves,
The fair Lucinda sleeping lay:
There sung the nightingale and lark,
Around us all was sweet and gay;
We ne’er grew sad till it grew dark,
Nor nothing feared but short’ning day.
I glow, I glow but ’tis with hate:
Why must I burn for this ingrate?
Cool, cool it then and rail,
Since nothing, nothing will prevail.

When a woman love pretends,
’Tis but till she gains her ends,
And for better and for worse
Is for marrow of the purse.
Where she jilts you o’er and o’er,
Proves a slattern or a whore,
This hour will tease and vex,
And will cuckold ye the next.
They were all contrived in spite,
To torment us, not delight;
But to scold and scratch and bite,
And not one of them proves right,
But all, all are witches by this light.
And so I fairly bid ’em, and the world, Good Night.

Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723)

Purcell wrote Let the dreadful engines for Part 1 of Thomas d’Urfey’s Comical History of Don Quixote, produced at Dorset Garden in London in 1694. D’Urfey’s rather loose adaptation of Cervantes’ original includes various absurd scenes, including an incident in the mountains of the Sierra Morena, in which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza come across a character called Cardenio, who seems to have been crossed in love. Dressed in ragged clothes and striking a ‘Wild Posture’, he sighs for his beloved Lucinda while delivering a savage diatribe against women in general, concluding that:

They were all contrived in spite,
To torment us, not delight;
But to scold and scratch and bite,
And not one of them proves right,
But all, all are witches by this light.
And so I fairly bid ’em, and the world, Good Night.

The song was published with other songs from the play in the same year, and was subsequently included in Book 1 of Orpheus Britannicus: a collection of the Choicest Songs … by Mr Henry Purcell, published in 1698 at the instigation of the composer’s widow Frances.

Let the dreadful engines of eternal will,
The thunder roar and crooked lightning kill,
My rage is hot as theirs, as fatal too,
And dares as horrid execution do.
Or let the frozen North its rancour show,
Within my breast far greater tempests grow;
Despair’s more cold than all the winds can blow.

Ye powers, I did but use her name,
And see how all the meteors flame;
Blue lightning flashes round the court of Sol,
And now the globe more fiercely burns
Than once at Phaeton’s fall.

Ah, where are now those flow’ry groves
Where Zephyr’s fragrant winds did play?
Where guarded by a troop of Loves,
The fair Lucinda sleeping lay:
There sung the nightingale and lark,
Around us all was sweet and gay;
We ne’er grew sad till it grew dark,
Nor nothing feared but short’ning day.
I glow, I glow but ’tis with hate:
Why must I burn for this ingrate?
Cool, cool it then and rail,
Since nothing, nothing will prevail.

When a woman love pretends,
’Tis but till she gains her ends,
And for better and for worse
Is for marrow of the purse.
Where she jilts you o’er and o’er,
Proves a slattern or a whore,
This hour will tease and vex,
And will cuckold ye the next.
They were all contrived in spite,
To torment us, not delight;
But to scold and scratch and bite,
And not one of them proves right,
But all, all are witches by this light.
And so I fairly bid ’em, and the world, Good Night.